Chapter 3

By the time Eddie’s daughter, Breeanne, gave birth, and adopted the newborn out, it was time for Eddie to return to sea duty. Orders came in for his transfer to a Guided Missile Frigate, which is a smaller ship than the one he served aboard on the East Coast. Luckily, his new assignment was homeported out of San Diego, so a move was not required. They had been living in military housing north of the city, so a copy of his orders were given to the Housing Authority and his housing assignment was amended with his new duty station. If his ship had been out of Long Beach, they may have been put on a waiting list. Breeanne was now seventeen, Steven was nearly sixteen and their youngest, Marley was thirteen, almost fourteen. Breeanne would have lost an entire school year, during her pregnancy, if her mother had not decided to ‘home school’ her. As her senior year approached, she was apprehensive about returning to her former public school due to the rumors surrounding her before she dropped out. Carol was not enthused about another year with her daughter underfoot, but they couldn’t afford to send her to a private school. If Eddie was still at the electronics school, he could have schooled her in the evenings, but with him being aboard ship, he had duty more often, there were the local operations which usually lasted at least a week away from home, and longer for any major deployments. In searching for an alternative, they consulted their school district. After consulting at various levels of its bureaucracy, Eddie and Carol found someone with sympathy to Breeanne’s plight, and enough clout, to affect a transfer to another high school not too far distant, but still far enough to give the prospective senior some isolation from notoriety. This ostensibly gave Breeanne some peace of mind. It did pose a problem in as much as Steven would still attend the school Breeanne had attended when she became pregnant. He would be a junior and the family agreed upon a response of ‘no comment’ if anyone inquired of Steven as to the status of his older sister. As it turned out, that response did not always work, and Steven gained notoriety of his own by being involved in several fights over the honor of his sister. Let it be understood that after a half-dozen fights, people stopped asking because Steven usually came out on top. Eddie, who had despaired for his son, was justifiably proud he had ably defended himself, and in doing so, defended his sister.

Eddie, who was now back aboard a ship, lost access to his ‘fuck-buddy’, so he was once again going without. Although there were now women aboard warships, it was too close quarters for Eddie. I was well known that a man and a woman would find a way to ‘hook up’, if they wanted to, bad enough. This was no less true on a naval vessel. There are countless stories about trysts, jealousies, fights and even deaths attributed to two sailors wanting to fuck each other, and that included all possible gender mixes. Eddie, with less than three years before he could retire and draw a pension, was not willing to take the chance. Consequently, he re-established a relationship with his left hand, unless they were deployed long enough to make port visits where he could scout around for some poontang. Did Eddie feel any guilt for his infidelity? Of course, he did, but felt justified due to his wife’s neglect of his sexual needs, despite her belief he shouldn’t have such needs.

In the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas in his daughter’s senior year, Eddie’s ship was deployed for three weeks. Their mission was classified then, but now it can be told: they carried a team of ‘Coasties’ (U.S. Coast Guard), who were tracking designated vessels that were suspected of transporting either drugs, or weapons. A navy crew wasn’t allowed to board another vessel on the high seas, but a Coast Guard vessel could, so Eddie’s ship carried a couple of Coast Guard inflatables, which could be launched from the helo deck, and with only Coast Guard personnel on board, they could board and search such vessels, thus ‘interdicting’ the transport of drugs or weapons. At the time, it was hush-hush, and Eddie just told his family he was going for an extended ‘war games’ exercise. Getting underway the Monday after Thanksgiving, Eddie’s ship headed south so they could patrol up and down the Pacific coast of Central America. Since this was a Coast Guard show, it was boring for most of the crew. Eddie’s division would encounter Coasties in the Combat Information Center (CIC) while they were maintaining their electronic equipment. The team had two Chief’s and they were often found in the Chief’s Mess if there wasn’t a hot target to track. It was low key stuff, most of the time.

Eddie had the habit of going out on the weather decks in the gathering dusk. He found it quiet and relaxing. One such sojourn had him spending over an hour out in the cool night air, and two days later, he felt like shit. Talking to his buddy, Al, the Chief Corpsman aboard, he was told he probably had tonsilitis and a sinus infection. He ran a fever, and when the fever broke, he was drenched in sweat. It was opportune that they pulled into Panama the next day. Al hustled him off the ship as soon as they had the gangway over. The ship had tied up at Rodman Naval Station, and they took a base cab to the hospital, where Al used pull as a Corpsman, to get Eddie directly to the clinic to see a doctor. There were several people at the check-in counter and when asked, Eddie sang out his name:

“Chief Petty Officer Edward Nolan”

Behind him, he heard a woman say:

“Eddie? Eddie Nolan?”

Turning to look behind him, he saw red-headed nurse with a broad smile. It took a second or two, but responded:

“Susan? Susan Pryor? Hell, is that you, all grown up, and a nurse, too!”

Susan was ready to run up to him, but stopped and asked:

“You’re not contagious, are you?”

“According to my buddy, Al, our chief corpsman, I probably have tonsilitis and a sinus infection, but he wanted a doc to validate that diagnosis.”